OPINION: With the recently announced sale of the Great Southern Rail (GSR) business, and the iconic Ghan and Indian Pacific passenger services, to Allegro Funds, it’s probably worth a few minutes to reflect on the fate of long distance passenger rail services in Australia over the last couple of decades, Mark Carter writes.
Talking about long distance services can mean different things to different people, but for the purposes of this article we can assume that anything that ventures outside the major metropolitan areas is ‘long distance’, though some might prefer to call it regional rail.
About twenty years ago I was commissioned to write an article for Australian Geographic that looked at ‘Adventure rail journeys in Australia’.
The editorial staff would not believe me when I pointed out that there were less than thirty regional services in Australia, and were even more incredulous when I pointed out that only a handful fitted the ‘adventure’ category – the emphasis being on a train ride getting you somewhere adventurous rather than the journey itself being an adventure.
Remarkably the number of trains serving regional areas has increased since then to just over thirty, although I’m still not sure any of the new destinations fit the ‘adventure’ category.
Going back to GSR for a moment, it will be interesting to see how The Ghan and The Indian Pacific fair with their new private equity owners. Both services have grown to become tourism icons, but it has been a slow process given that they were already moving in that direction under Australian National ownership before privatisation in 1997.
At that time there was still a commuter aspect to both services and for a while even GSR promoted the sit up cars as a backpacker experience.
These days ‘experiential tourism’ is the buzz phrase and despite both services having been cut back to just weekly (outside peak tourist periods) loadings appear to have been strong of late. Whether this will be enough to reverse the reported losses the business made under Serco, remains to be seen.
The first challenge for the new business will be resolving the fortunes of GSR’s problem child, The Overland. What in 1997 was a daily overnight sleeper service between Melbourne and Adelaide has progressively been reduced under privatisation to just a twice weekly daylight service.
The Overland would still be referred to as a commuter service, its part in Australia’s tourism infrastructure being limited, though anecdotal evidence suggests tour groups using this service have boosted numbers in recent months.
The service is supported by subsidies from the South Australian and Victorian governments, though the last play for an increase in these subsidies was rebuffed. Unless someone has a magic wand or a great marketing plan I would say the days of The Overland are limited.
In recent decades, and arguably even further back, state governments have always struggled with regional and longer distance passenger rail services as a drain on the state coffers.
The Victorian government will be a major player if The Overland is to be retained and too their credit, where possible in an ever increasing list of priorities, it has have managed to retain most of its other regional rail services and in many cases has expanded them to new destinations, such as Echuca and Maryborough.
This is not without its challenges as, coupled with what are in fare recovery terms very low fares, it has raised expectations to unrealistic levels and boosted to passenger numbers on some route sto breaking point.
It is also interesting that despite the expansion of services, the political cause célèbre of regional rail services in Victoria, the Mildura line, is still nowhere closer to having its passenger service than it was twenty years ago.
In Queensland the future is not quite so rosy. While passengers on the coastal route continue to be well served with shiny and expensive new tilt trains, inland dwellers have seen the guts ripped out of their rail services in recent months.
The previous Queensland Government failed miserably when it came to the future of these services. Faced with the choice of either investing in upgrades and marketing, or biting the bullet and cutting services altogether it chose the fence sitting option of cutting facilities such as dining and sleeping cars from the services making them all around less attractive.
Given the reportedly very low patronage on most of these services, the new changes are unlikely to enamour more people to use these services, consigning them no doubt to a long lingering death. Never mind, that will be someone else’s problem.
In New South Wales you sometimes get the impression that the country rail fleet – most notably the XPT services – is held together with gaffer tape.
During the recent state election there were noises that a new XPT replacement fleet was on the cards, and to be honest they did seem more like noises than promises. This will be a major challenge for the government as replacement of the fleet will be costly and hard to justify based on patronage and fare recovery levels.
Another refurbishment for the fleet may get the government through a couple of electoral cycles, but some of the interim measures to contend with this that I have heard sound like they were put together at a Friday night session after work down at the local!
Regional rail services, yes we still have them. You read it here first.
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